In the production of electrical or electronic components for mass applications, it is endeavored to provide the desired electrical functionality in good quality with the lowest possible production costs. In one class of production methods, a laminate is produced as an intermediate product by a conductor foil, in particular a metal foil, being connected to the substrate by a layer of adhesive lying in between. Subsequently, the conductor foil is structured, by being severed by a suitable separating process, for example, laser cutting, punching or the like, at the boundaries of those regions that are intended to later form the conductor structure. In many cases, this involves creating relatively large pieces of foil that do not belong to the end product and accordingly have to be removed from the intermediate product before further method steps can follow.
EP 0 790 123 B1 and corresponding DE 697 34 328 T2 describe a method of producing a laminate from a patterned metal foil and a substrate in which a metal foil web is laminated onto a substrate by an adhesive being introduced between the metal foil and the substrate in a predetermined pattern. The pattern defines regions in which adhesive is present and regions in which no adhesive is present. Subsequently, the metal foil is cut into a pattern, which corresponds to the boundaries of the regions containing the adhesive. The cutting may take place, for example, by rotational punching or by laser cutting. Those regions of metal foil that are not adhesively attached to the substrate by the adhesive are subsequently removed, for example, by suction.
WO 2009/118455 A1 discloses other methods of the generic type. In one variant of the method, a conductor foil is selectively fastened to the substrate material, desired regions of the end product that form the final conductor structure and narrow regions between the conductive regions of the end product being connected to the substrate by an adhesive, and laterally extended regions of the foil intended to be removed later remain, largely unconnected to the substrate such that they are at most connected to the substrate in a peripheral region removed in a later structuring step. Subsequently, the conductor foil is structured by material removal, by removing material from narrow regions between the desired regions of the conductor structure and from the outer periphery of the larger foil regions intended to be removed from the piece later to create the conductor structure. After that, the pieces of foil that are no longer fastened to the substrate are removed since the peripheral region of these pieces of foil that was removed from the outer periphery of these pieces of foil during the structuring operation no longer securely holds the pieces of foil on the substrate. Among the aims of the method is to avoid problems that arise when adhesive material remains in the non-conductive regions of the finished structure.
It could therefore be helpful to provide a method and an installation that produces a multilayer element of the generic type that allow the production of high-quality multilayer elements with a high degree of reliability of the process at low production costs. The end products produced should have consistently good functionality even under mechanical loading during use.